Presidential Election 2016

I haven't posted in a while, partly because I didn't feel I had much to contribute on the Clinton-Trump campaign. 


I know where I stand, and think most other people do, too.  So there's just not much room for discussion or persuasion.  I also don't want to align myself with some of the worst conspiracy theorists and mudslingers.


I find myself dwelling most on my objections to Hillary.  Not because I support Trump, or think he's somehow a better choice. He's not.  I dwell on Hillary more because I want to explain to those who generally agree with me on Trump why that doesn't automatically mean I support Hillary.  And why I consider her a more subtle danger to the American I know and love.


First, one of the key differences that has come up in discussions with friends.  Some of the Hillary supporters basically think "all politicians lie.  Lying doesn't bother me, so long as they support the policies I want."  As such, they will support Hillary no matter how many scandals the Republicans throw at her, because in their eyes those scandals are not really unusual or beyond the bounds...and Hillary supports the policies they want.  These are the ones who dismiss the e-mail scandal as a 'pseudo-scandal', and don't understand what all the fuss is about.


This really, truly, and honestly bothers me.  We excuse politicians for lying, we accept that they will do whatever it takes to cover up their mistakes, and so long as those mistakes are not really meaningful we're okay with it?!? 


And what does anyone consider 'meaningful' for a scandal, anyway?  How do you decide the severity?  Granted, we all do this to some extent...I dismiss the Benghazi hearings, for example, partly because it seems a bit much to pin the whole thing on one person.


Sure, the Lewinski scandal was kind of trashy and one could argue that it had nothing to do with how effective a president Bill Clinton was, yet is it really okay for a president to outright lie like that?  (Apparently, to not a few people, the answer is 'yes'.)  Will the person who justifies lying about an affair really act too different if the issue is even more serious?  Can you trust them to make the right call if it will get them into trouble? 


I may go on about the importance of character at some later time, but I don't want to digress right now.  The important point is that I disagree with this point of view entirely, and I think character is pretty important when picking a candidate.  (This also, btw, is not an area where Trump compares favorably.)


So, then, what next?  Well...I have seen a number of articles trying to argue that "if we only knew the real Hillary, we would like her".  As if that means she has great character, and that we should ignore the smears.  Likeability...well, truthfully it's not the greatest assessment.  There are a lot of brutal people who can be quite likeable.  There are a lot of likeable people who aren't really qualified for the jobs they are applying for.  But okay, fine...it's great that she's a good listener.  I'm sure she will work the levers of power quite capably. 


Honestly, that's where my main concern comes from.  As the middle class has shrunk, as income inequality has grown, America is poised to become an oligarchy.  Perhaps we already are.  We are becoming divided into the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.


And the 'haves' are quite buddy-buddy with each other.  We are seeing the development of a global elite, one that may go shopping in New York one day and Tokyo the next.  One that may give a nod and a wink to the idealists who value human rights, while behind the scenes they do what needs to be done.  Or so they think.  These are the people that will put a Karzai in charge of Afghanistan, who will argue that realpolitik means that we must support Saudi Arabia.  And perhaps, in some cases, there's some truth to their claims.  (Maybe.)


This is where I believe the public and hidden transcript comes into play.  Because there are things we all know and suspect these elite do, behind the scenes, that never comes out in the light.  Is that bad, in and of itself?  Or is that just the nature of power?  Should we be concerned?  Or is it business as usual?


The internet has given us this capability for transparency that is amazing, sometimes.  And the responses to that transparency show that fears the public wouldn't understand may sometimes be overblown.  Wikileaks released thousands of state department e-mails, and most people just shrugged.


Which is why I was disappointed in Colin Powell when his e-mails to Hillary were released. For pretty much the same reason I think Hillary was wrong to have her private server in the first place.  What are you saying or doing, that you are worried would become part of the official record and subject to the law?  Do you think the public would misunderstand something?  If you truly believed it was the right thing to do, why can't you argue and explain that?  Why are you so afraid of public scrutiny?  (Public scrutiny.  Yes, I get why you'd be afraid that your political enemies would use whatever is public against you...and you may face pressure in the news and at home...but those things are actually really rather different, and distant from, the public.)


So anyways.  What bothers me with Hillary is that there seem to be so many, many, many people trying to make her the next president.  And they are willing to overlook so much, in order to do so.  It worries me, because it shows the elite manipulating the system to get the result they want, and in the process they are closing that system out to alternatives.  Not only that, but they seem to think that Hillary really hasn't done anything wrong. Nothing different from what everyone else is doing.  Which, rather than saying what Hillary does was okay, rather implies that the whole system is so screwed up that the elite no longer even know what's right and what's wrong any more.


This article, btw, captures some of my own perspective watching the political election this year.  She didn't know what the (C) meant?  She's either lying through her teeth or too stupid to believe. 


I keep thinking this election is a false dilemma, one unfortunately aided and abetted by the elite...so that out of a nation of 300 million we are left with these two horrible options.  Why didn't the Democratic Party quietly pressure Hillary to bow out when she was under investigation?  Why, instead, did the DNC support her so much? 

Command Climate, Ethics, and Hillary's E-mails.

When I was a  young officer, my battery commander and our staff were preparing for a couple of weeks training out in the field.  In the Army, one of our axioms is "train as you fight".  The more realistic training, the better.  Yet our commander took this rule and tried to argue that we should use signals and radio channels the way we would really fight.  The problem is that those channels are restricted use in peace time, and really not something we should be using.  I remember watching as he refused to accept 'no' for an answer and insisted that there had to be a way.  (I didn't envy the young soldier who had to tell him it couldn't be done.)

The thing is, our commander was doing what our entire culture says a leader should do.  He was driven.  A hard charger.  No excuses.  Take no prisoners. (And it was utterly stupid.  Of all things to be driven over, this?!?)

I brought this up because we, as leaders, are responsible for creating the work environment.  We put pressure on our subordinates to get things done, or find a way, or make it happen.  Which is all well and good, in that it can push people out of their ruts and lead to some truly amazing and creative things.  The dark side of this, however, is that if you're not careful you will pressure people to do things that are illegal, immoral, unethical...or just plain shortsighted because in pursuing your stated goal they may make choices that undermine your ultimate vision.

My company recently did it's annual ethics training, and I kind of liked a couple of the scenarios.  In one the boss set a goal (meet a sales target) and said find a way.  The boss refused to accept no for an answer and put considerable pressure on the employees to make it happen.  In order to do so, the employees started considering some pretty shady things.  Like calling up customers to ask them to purchase enough material to make their sales goal, with the understanding that they would return it.  This distorts the true picture of how that product is selling, all to meet an (often arbitrary) goal.

I brought this all up because I felt I needed to explain a few more things from my previous post.  I don't know what the FBI investigation will find, but I don't honestly expect them to say that Hillary knowingly released classified information.  What I expect is that they'll find some staffer who got told to give her information (which happened to be classified, and had to be sent to her private e-mail on her private server so she could access it on her blackberry), who knew it was classified, and got told to find a way.  Given the training we all go through when handling classified material, I expect that staffer should have known better.  And I expect they felt stuck between what their class said to do and what their boss wanted.  So they made it happen.

This is part of the concern I have when I say she, and the Establishment, lives in a bubble.  When you don't know what you are asking of your people, when you accept no excuses and refuse to hear people out in an attempt to drive them further, when you don't set limits or necessarily even try to understand what they will do when you say find a way, you create an environment that is rife with the potential for illegal, immoral, and unethical behavior.

Speaking of Horrible Events

Two of my current 'horrifying news' stories:

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan.  As more and more details come out it's so horrible I can't even.  Like literally, thinking about it makes me so mad I don't want to start.  If I did, who knows when I'd stop?

The second one:  Hillary's e-mails.

Yeah, yeah.  I  mostly blew off the Benghazi hearings, as typical Republican witch hunting.  But the e-mails? 

Before I go any further, I think I need to share a link.  This is actually even better than one I found yesterday, because it goes into a lot of detail on what it takes to get material from one classified network to another.  I didn't realize until I saw articles like this how little people knew about the process.  I can remember what a headache it was to get material off one network and onto another...going down a security level, that is.  I had to e-mail it off to the right department, where they would check the material to make sure it didn't have anything too high for the network we were sending it to.  They'd e-mail it back to me on the desired network when they were done, if it all checked out.

Yes, there are issues with over-classification.  And in some situations (I imagine diplomatic talks that you participate in) it may not really seem like classified material at the time.  I'll leave it to the FBI to sort out whether or not a crime has been committed.

That said - if known classified material was deliberately sent to an unclassified network (ANY unclassified network!!! Not just 'a private e-mail server') then that's a Big. Friggin. Deal.

It's huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge.  It is going to jail level bad.  Everybody I know who's been in intel understands that.  We all know that if we had done what appears to have happened, we'd be facing some sort of judicial proceedings.

And so it horrifies me, absolutely  horrifies me, how many people are giving Hillary a pass on this one!  Yes, I know the Republican candidates are horrible.  I don't think Trump has a chance in hell in the general election, but I could be wrong.  I know Hillary has been pushed as 'the establishment' candidate...

But if they overlook this, in their rush to help support her, then it typifies everything that is so scary and disturbing about  America today.  It shows that power trumps justice.  That someone who, at a minimum, is responsible for creating the environment where something like this could happen, would be a potential President.

I don't care about Benghazi.  I don't want to see any of the current Republican candidates as president.  But I sure as hell don't want to see Democrats ignore or minimize these e-mail problems, and I find it very disturbing that so many respected institutions are acting like this is no big deal.  (If 'everyone is doing it', as one alleged, than we've got an even bigger problem than I thought.)